


Taking Chances

by Tav



Category: Inception (2010) RPF
Genre: Deception, Family Hate, Family Member Death, First Time, Journalists, Kindness, M/M, Music, Slight Violence, homeless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 21:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4892323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tav/pseuds/Tav
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph invites a hobo home for Thanksgiving....</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Chances

**Thanksgiving Morning**

 “Super Santa-" Marion purrs into the microphone.  If Joseph wasn’t bearing witness to the look on her face as she reads the script in front of her, he would be convinced that she is as passionate about the product as her melodious tone misleads. “-now Santa saves the day 365 days a year. “

 

Then the Kung-Fuish Christmas tune comes to an end and Joseph is glaring venomously at Lukas.  Lukas is making a rose out of tissue paper that Joseph is sure he saw his colleague use to wipe his runny nose only moments before.

 

“Damn it, Lukas!” Ellen knocks the moist tissue out of Lukas’ hand and the offensive frail flower falls to the ground.  “How hard is it to press one, button?”

 

As if just remembering where he is, Lukas pushes his finger down on the orange button and the silent studio is unnecessarily reminded that ‘batteries are sold separately’.

 

 “Let’s take it from the top,” Leo sighs, rubbing a hand over his face. Leo looks tired. Joseph is tired. Everyone is tired. But Joseph can’t bring himself to feel even slightly bad for Leo since it was his idea alone to bring Lukas back on the team. Even after the bumbling idiot had nearly lost them their biggest client after leaking out an unpatented jingle to their opposition.  If only Lukas wasn’t so damn good on the piano. And the guitar. And the saxophone. The bloody talented fuck.

 

“No,” Marion pulls off her headphones, tossing them aside before leaving the soundproof, makeshift compartment to stand in front of the team. Her presence, when heated, effortlessly holds everybody’s attention hostage. Joseph often wonders if it’s some sort of secret French beauty hypnosis.  “I refuse to spend another second in this souterrain.”

 

“Hey,” Joseph frowns, feeling slightly offended as he looks around his studio apartment.

 

It certainly is no Hollywood music studio.  The computers are all second-hand, donated to them by a local college that was able to upgrade the system in their labs due to an annual government grant. The audio interface is mostly outdated. The microphones need almost as much maintenance as the headphones and some of the audio cables are held together with black tape. The control surface is missing a knob or two and one of the guitars in the instrument corner has a bent neck, but Joseph is embarrassingly proud of how far The Jingle-Gym has come in just a little over a year.

 

With radio jingles being broadcasted over several national stations, he fails to see how any of them can’t be downright impressed with themselves. Going from sound engineering students at a B rated community college to being Watanabe Inc.’s first choice in audio advertising is something Joseph views as early success and nearly exactly where he’s always wanted his life to be at his twenty five years of age.  He is able to do what he loves doing daily, with all the people he loves working with.

 

And Lukas. 

 

And not only is he being paid for it, but he is also leaving long lasting little legacies, something he takes great pride in when he hears a little girl singing one of their catchy tunes on his train ride home.

 

The studio is far from perfect, but Joseph is not about to let Marion run it down in her exasperated state.

 

Joseph is satisfied when she has the decency to give him an apologetic smile before she turns on Leo entirely.

 

“We have been recording for hours,” she pokes a delicate finger into his shoulder. “It is thanksgiving. I will not waste another holiday listening to my own voice just because you refuse to tell Ken that we all actually have lives away from work.”

 

“I second that,” Ellen slams her headphones down as well. “And I actually made a turkey this ye-”

 

Cillian clears his throat and Ellen rolls her eyes before sighing dramatically.

 

“Cillian and I actually made a turkey this year and we expect all of you to help us devour the stuffing out of that bird.”

 

“We can’t slack off now,” Leo remains stubborn even as he tries to rub the redness from his eyes, further reddening them in the process.  “Watanabe needs this jingle to start airing tomorrow.”

 

“Thirty days, mon cheri,” Marion pouts as she sits down on Leonardo’s lap and wraps her arms loosely around his shoulders. We all know it is useless now, it is impossible for Leo to resist her charm at times like this but his stubbornness always disallows him to go down without a fight.  “We have thirty days, two stations and five slots per day. Surely that is more than enough time to convince the country to waste their money on Japanese, crime fighting, Santa Clause action figures, no?”

 

“And adopt a lifetime of Christmas terrors,” Ellen toys with a button on the back of one of said action figures, pulling a face as the mouth opens and shuts like The Nutcracker. A robotic _Ho Ho Ho_ is released and it really is more terrifying than cute.

 

“One more hour,” Leo finally says, coaxing a disappointed Marion out of his lap. He pays no attention to the mix of sighs and groans from the team. “Then we send it, we forget about work and go and enjoy what very well may be our last meal.”

 

Ellen glares at Leo because he still refuses to let go of the last time she made a casserole that resulted in all of them running to the bathroom every hour for the next three days.  And Cillian ruffles her hair before placing his headphones back over his ears. And everyone looks miserable and exhausted even as they return to their respective places. And something inside Joseph disallows this to go on because none of them had been home since leaving Ken Watanabe’s office the previous afternoon.  It felt unfair, because as much as he too had been doing nothing but work with his team, he was still at an advantage due to the fact that he _was_ working at home.

 

“Why don’t you guys head out,” Joseph speaks into his mic so that Marion can also hear him from inside the recording cubicle. “I’ll finish up here, an hour and a half tops and I’ll meet you there.”

 

Nobody says anything and the offer sort of hangs in the air as they all look between each other. As if searching for a way to convince Joseph that he doesn’t always have to be the one to remain behind all while dying to take him up on his proposal.

 

“I have to go see my dad anyway,” Joseph says when the silence begins to feel awkward.

 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Leo asks, voice secretive as if they all don’t already know about Joseph’s father issues.

 

Joseph simply shrugs. “It’s what my mom would’ve wanted,” he says with a tight smile that he is certain none of them are buying. Even when Marion offers one in return.

 

*****

  **One Week Before Thanksgiving**

 

“What, are you crazy?” Cillian knocks Joe’s hand away, nearly causing the coins to slip out from between his gloved fingertips.

 

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” Joe is genuinely confused and deeply annoyed, almost about to make another attempt at the interrupted exchange.  But Cillian is already dropping the bag of his leftover breakfast from the diner across the road into the homeless man’s lap and pulling Joseph along with him.

 

“You know exactly what he’s gonna use that money for,” Cillian shrugs when Joe refuses to reduce the intensity of his glare.  “At least now you know he’s gonna eat something nutritious.”

 

“What’s nutritious about three curly fries and a few veggie omelette crumbs?”  Joseph frowns, looking over his shoulder. Back to the man in raggedy clothes. Possibly a good four layers yet still looking cold on the corner of the street in the peppering snow.  The man looks into the brown bag, heavy beard powdered in white, trucker cap shading what Joe assumes may be hopeful eyes. And then the man looks up at Joe and his _thank you_ gets lost in the continuous chatter of his friend and the rumble of cars rolling by. So Joseph merely mouths an apology in return. Knowing full well that it will never quite amount to that full loaf of freshly baked bread that the poor man could’ve bought with the money Joe had intended on offering.

 

Joe watches the man place the parcel into the hole of his stringless acoustic guitar, stand up and walk away against the gentle spray of snow.

 

*********

**Three Days Before Thanksgiving**

Joseph honestly isn’t spying. At least it hadn’t started out that way. The homeless man’s chosen place to squat just happens to be on the exact corner between Joe’s apartment and his favourite diner.  But Joe sees it happen and his curiosity gets the better of him and that is the only reason why he’s peering suspiciously around the corner, watching the transaction unfold.  

 

Joe scolds himself for watching too much Crime Channel Reality Shows and decides to just call it an act of kindness, because that is exactly what it is.

 

A slightly large guy, olive skinned and bearded with a mop of black curls on his head crouches down beside the homeless man.  It’s obvious to Joe that this visitor is not homeless himself due to the designer jeans and well-tailored coat he has on. It’s obvious in Joe’s stereotypically distracted and uncharacteristically judgemental mind that this is merely a Good Samaritan.

 

And the Levis clad man reaches into his pocket, pulling out what looks like a tiny roll of something green. And the homeless man takes it and hides it in one of the pockets in one of the layers of his tattered armour. From this far, Joe cannot see either mans’ facial expression, but the hearty pat on the homeless man’s shoulder is a gesture far too affectionate, too familiar that Joe is certain that this is not the first time the two of them have made just such an exchange.

 

The two men exchange a few more words before the Samaritan is standing and Joe has just enough time to hide himself back behind his confined corner before the other man can fully turn in his direction.

 

Joe counts the seconds, not quite sure why his heart is pounding so fiercely, a moment before the man takes his corner. And it’s taken so fast and carelessly that the other man nearly walks right into him.

 

Instinctively, both men instantly swop similar apologies. Because Joe was brought up that way and Joe had just intruded and Joe actually feels as though the other man might call him out on it. But the Samaritan merely offers a smile and a nod before carrying on down the street, leaving Joe to look after him in wonder.        


When Joe finally returns to his senses and peeks back around the corner, the homeless man is nowhere to be found.

 

Joe doesn’t think twice before scurrying down the street, slowing his pace only when his shoes threaten to slide on the cold, icy sidewalk. He reaches the end of the block in good time as the homeless man turns another corner further down an alley that he himself has never taken.

 

“What are you doing Joe,” he scolds himself more than questions, taking each step faster than the last so as not to lose his mark. Joe knows exactly what he is doing. He can hear his father’s voice resounding in his head, years of angry bickering between his parents because his mother, rest her sweet soul, could never seem to pass a begging man without giving away whatever change she had in her pocket. And his father absolutely and utterly loathed her inability to turn the other cheek, outwardly disobeying her husband in a way that made them all spend the drive home in bitter silence. Not before Joe received an earful about how ‘vagrants’ had choices. ‘Vagrants’ were worthless scum feeding off the dollar of honest, hard-working people. ‘Vagrants’ only ever used the kindness of idiots like my mother to support their addictive habits that they had no right to indulge in in the first place.

 

And so Joe finds himself blindly following this stranger to settle some inward childhood debates he has harboured for years over the notions from a man who apparently would not piss on a ‘vagrant’ if ‘it’ was on fire. 

 

For a moment, Joe thinks that there might have been some truth to his father’s twisted logic when he spends a full fifteen minutes outside a convenient store, pulling his scarf tighter around his neck because it is honestly too cold out to be partaking in such ridiculous hunts. And when the man does emerge, it is indeed with both arms full of parcels and his stringless guitar strapped to his back. But Joe is still too far away to make out the contents of the brown bags, too far to hear the obvious clatter of bottles that he is expecting. So apart from the dirty looks the homeless man receives from the convenient store’s patrons both entering and exiting, Joe is still unwilling to come to any conclusions.

 

With each turn further into a part of town that Joe is now completely unfamiliar with, it becomes clear to him that the other man knows exactly where he is going. Joe tries to remember street names and stores, apartment buildings, anything that will enable him to find his way home.

 

Then Joe stops abruptly and hides around the corner when he realises that the next alley that the man has entered leads to a dead end. But the homeless man is no longer alone. He listens to the suddenly loud chatter, obvious amusement by his presence from a group of similarly dressed people standing around an open fire. He hears the crackling of burning board from the rusted bin, hears the relieved praises from both women and men, watches in complete astonishment when the homeless man empties his bags. Bearing breadsand canned goods, cartons of milk and packets of processed cold-cuts.  And something far too warm in such cold climate wells up in Joe’s chest.

 

Joe takes the walk back home far too numbly to grasp how he reaches his apartment at all.

 

Joe’s childhood debates are settled.  

*********

**The Day Before Thanksgiving**

 

Joe draws the shortest straw and is forced to make that hour’s coffee run.

 

He doesn’t really mind.

 

He never trusts actually consuming what Lukas brings back, because Lukas always hands it over with a menacing smile and an even spookier, _“Enjoy, Joseph.”_

 

Ellen always insists on _spicing_ _up_ the order because the barista who she swears is related to Chad Krueger always talks her into trying out his new _improved_ private recipes. Joe is still dealing with post traumatic caffeinated disorder syndrome over what he found at the bottom of his cup of Chilli mocha. Whether or not Ellen chooses to believe that’s a real condition.

 

If Marion goes, Leo goes and if Leo goes, Marion goes and they end up returning with cold coffee and one hundred and one excuses as to exactly why Leo is sporting the world’s biggest crimson mark on the tender part of his throat.

 

If Cillian –

 

Joe stops himself right there.

 

Cillian just doesn’t.

 

Joe admits to himself that he is a little bit disappointed when he hits the streets and the corner that has been occupied by the Homeless Hero over the past few days is empty. Joe had decided that it was a cute title the night before when he couldn’t sleep and his mind had been plagued with hourly thoughts about gestures of kindness and bearded men in capes. Now Joe shakes his head and chuckles at himself, feeling stupid for even dwelling on a stranger so much. A kind stranger. The type of kindness he hadn’t come across ever since his mother had died. 

 

Joe is about to cross the road when something in the alley catches his eye. He had thought that he would be happy to see his Homeless Hero after all, but the site in front of him makes his blood run cold.  

 

“Hey,” Joe shouts before thinking, runs before having a plan. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Get out of here.”

 

And Joe is grateful when one juvenile delinquent stops kicking the defenceless man on the ground and the other boy lets go of the stringless guitar. The guitar immediately snaps back into the homeless man’s grasp where he clutches it to his chest as if he had almost just lost everything he owned in the world. And by the time Joe reaches the scene, he is half tempted to run after the kids that can’t possibly be older than fifteen. But they are already far off, laughter echoing against high alley walls, insults lost against the sound of heavy boots hitting wet tar.   

 

There were many things that Joe hadn’t expected to happen that day, but none as startling as the rush of feeling that swarms into his gut when he finally crouches down in front of the homeless man, clutches his shoulders and their eyes lock.

 

Every single syllable of concern that was seconds away from spilling out in his well-known surge of panic immediately dies away. Dries up somewhere along with the heat that rises to his face. Because what he sees past that bearded face and hooded eyes is not at all what he had expected.     

 

The careful shades of blue and green laced with a dangerous sort of grey are absolutely not at all what Joe had expected to find starring back at him.

 

“Are you okay?” Joe asks softly, as if the words have to be whispered.

 

“Yes,” the reply is short and gruff and every bit as shaken as Joe thinks he himself might look. “Thank you.”    

 

“Stay here,” Joe says, because Joe can’t think clearly. But the man looks cold and in shock and all Joe can think about is how his mother used to give him a warm cookie and hot chocolate in just such instances when he himself was deeply shaken. So Joe runs across the road mindlessly, places the order in a blur and returns to find the alley completely empty.

 

Joe spends the rest of the day trying to convince himself that he had imagined the entire ordeal.

 

*****

  **Later That Same Thanksgiving Morning**

His father opens the front door with a little blonde thing sitting high on his shoulders. She is giggling madly, clutching the old man’s greying scalp, and they are wearing matching, overly bright sweaters with large animated turkeys stitched into their fronts. She is the first to greet Joe with something that he thinks is supposed to be directed at that particular day of festivity. But Joe isn’t sure because cookie crumbs are spilling from her mouth and she is in hysterics and Joe’s ears won’t seem to stop ringing.

 

“Joseph,” his father finally says, smile more controlled than the genuine one that had graced his wrinkled face only moments before. He begins to remove the reluctant toddler from his shoulders as if he had actually been caught doing something wrong by having her there in the first place. “What are you doing here?”

 

“Who is it, Michael?” comes a voice from further inside the house that is redolent of pumpkin and turkey and a day that Joe used to remember from a childhood he is beginning to think he imagined altogether. The lady who appears at Joe’s father’s side is young. Blonde. Beautiful. Turkied sweater fitting just a little tighter around her slender frame. She takes the offered child into her arms, propping the girl on her hip as she smiles far too sweetly at Joe.

 

“Honey, this is Joseph,” his father says, stepping out onto the porch, causing Joe to very numbly step back. “Dear old friend of mine.”

 

“Oh,” the blonde lady’s smile broadens, even as she is forced to look over Michael’s shoulder and is casually stopped from her attempt at shaking Joe’s hand. “Will you be joining us then, Joseph?”

 

That is the last Joe hears of her before the door is closed between them.

 

Joe finds himself looking at the door a little while longer, mainly because he can’t quite bring himself to look up at his father. Not just yet.

 

“You’re the last person I expected to see here,” his father folds his arms over his chest, smiling out into the front yard as if expecting to find more unwanted guests lining up in the driveway.

 

“I was under the impression that it was still sort of my home too,” Joe mumbles. His eyes dart to the large oak tree in the front yard, not surprised to find his tire-swing gone.

 

“Yes,” Michael nods, “but you left so long ago. I just assumed-”

 

“Hoped.”

 

“Assumed you had started a life of your own.”

 

“I have,” Joe confirms and it isn’t a lie at all.

 

“Very good,” Michael reaches out to pat Joe’s shoulder once and Joe is still too numb to flinch away. “So I don’t understand. Is there something you need?”

 

“I left you messages,” Joe says softly. “Didn’t you get any of them?”

 

“Joseph,” his father’s face is suddenly somewhat sad, smile still refusing to leave. “I’m a very busy man, you know that. If I happened to overlook a message or two-”

 

“I left eight,” Joe admits. Michael remains silent and his smile vanishes and so Joe continues. “I thought we could spend thanksgiving together.”

 

“Why on earth would you think that, Joseph?”

 

“It was what mom wanted,” Joe says, not caring for his father’s change of tone. The tone that had made him feel stupid for so many years. “It was in her will. She wanted us to be together on the holidays.”

 

“Joseph,” Michael snaps and Joe actually starts. “Your mother is gone. And perhaps you should leave too.”

 

Joe doesn’t know how long he stands alone on the porch before the laughter coming from inside the house forces him to walk away.

 

  **Thanksgiving Afternoon**

_-We’re finishing the good stuff!_

The message comes in from Ellen with a very poorly taken selfie of Cillian and her trying to drink at the same time from the same bottle of Champaign. Joseph briefly wonders when the two of them are just going to cut the crap and shag already.

 

He is about to text back those exact words, but then he looks up. A silent apology escapes his lips. He instead texts back about how cute the two of them look together. He is afforded ten more minutes of silence after receiving a red angry face from Ellen, before Leo texts him next.

 

_Concerned. You’re not picking up at home. Where the hell are you?_

       

Joe contemplates not replying at all, maybe even turning his phone off altogether. But he doesn’t want his friends to worry. He doesn’t want them to know. So instead, Joe looks around himself before texting back the honest truth.

 

_Decided to stay with Family._

And he figures that’s a good enough reply when Leo just tells him to have fun and call him if he needs him.

 

Joe pockets his phone and crosses his legs, pulling his knees to his chest against the cold. Joe looks at his mother’s tombstone.

 

It was not a lie.

 

*****

**Later That Same Thanksgiving Afternoon**

 

Joseph has never ever really thought of himself as his father’s son. He never quite felt like a Caine. It had always been about passion not prosperity. When passion led, prosperity followed even if it wasn’t in coins and notes as his father had tried to imbed in his growing mind.

 

Joe chooses strumming his guitar and singing badly over the retiring tranquillity of an empty library. He chooses doodles over numbers. Joe swims naked in lakes and enjoys the harsh spray of waterfalls, not caring any for spas and saunas after tedious rounds of golf.

 

Joe is, without a doubt, his mother’s son.

 

Which is why Joe is standing in front of a confused looking, bearded stranger, asking said stranger to join him for Thanksgiving.

 

“I beg your pardon?” the homeless man says, brows furrowing and eyes sort of squinting as if he is certain he has heard incorrectly. But Joe isn’t paying much attention to the other man’s incredulity; Joe is too fixated on the thoroughly British accent that so easily laces every word. Has this man always been British? Can one turn British?

 

“Excuse my-,” Joe stammers, not sure what exactly he needs to be excused for. His insanity most likely. “My name is Joe.”

 

Joe lets out his hand, feeling ridiculous for wiping it on his thigh first and then guilty for feeling the act was unnecessary simply because this man is a hobo.  It takes ten seconds of uncomfortable silence before their hands finally join.

 

“Tom,” he offers and Joe is immediately relieved that he can stop relating to Tom as the homeless guy. He is grateful that he catches himself before blurting that part out.

 

“Tom,” Joe confirms unnecessarily. “Would you like to join me, for Thanksgiving. If you don’t have any plans. I mean- I don’t know if you would. Not that you can’t have plans. Everyone is entitled to have plans regardless of their-“

 

Joe stops talking and wants to shoot himself until he realises that Tom is chuckling.

 

“I’m really not crazy,” Joe suddenly finds it necessary to confirm because he’s sure it isn’t ordinary to have a homeless stranger laugh at your invitation to your home. “I mean, I’m not some psychopath trying to lure you to my house to-“

 

Joseph stops again when the smile on Tom’s face vanishes; pink lips going into a thin line surrounded by far too much hair to be comfortable. And Joe realizes there is absolutely no way of explaining himself properly. Not right there on the corner of the street in the blistering cold, being showered by a thin layer of snow under dark clouds. Maybe it was just an entirely bad idea, Joe thinks, snapping his hand away that is still being clasped by a large hand in fingerless gloves.

 

“Look,” Joe feels his head pound, anxiety rising in his chest, previous bravery melting away like the ice on Tom’s beard. With every awkward second that passes, his mistake is made clearer to him. But no matter how much he wants to erase the past three minutes and possibly never do anything charitable again for as long as he lives, he is far from heartless enough to uninvited someone. “I’m gonna head home, you’re more than welcome to come over or walk away. I- I’m sorry for bothering you.”

 

And Joe makes his escape, quickening his pace down the street as the weather threatens to worsen.

 

A full minute later when Joe looks back, Tom is following him.

*****

 

**The Morning After Thanksgiving**

Joe wakes up much later than usual, even for a day after a holiday. He would usually be nursing a hangover and craving a shower, stomach churning with festive regret and body demanding the strongest, darkest coffee known to man. But there was nothing at all usual about how he had spent the previous day.

 

Instead, Joe’s body is ringing with the sort of painful satisfaction that you get after running a marathon, each stretch of muscle straining with a delicious sort of tension.

 

Joe wonders if anyone would ever write a jingle for just such a feeling, and then finds himself laughing uncontrollably when he remembers a song by Lonely Island that Leo insisted on blasting on the stereo for a full day after his second date with Marion.

 

Joe can’t remember being this happy alone on a cold morning until the fact that he is alone actually dawns on him.

 

The alarm clock on his nightstand flashes a cruel, red eight thirty as he drags himself out of bed. The only thing stranger than finding his clothes folded in a neat pile on the closest chair is the fact that there is a thoroughly pleasant smell of caffeine wafting through his studio apartment. But no matter how temptingly amazing it smells, it still doesn’t lift his mood that he could have sworn didn’t need any lifting only moments ago.

 

Joe blinks away something sad, something that feels as though it would taste exactly like the misplaced loss that builds in his mouth and he can’t help but swallow down. His thoughts are so scattered as he throws on sweatpants and shuffles right past the flashing answering machine, such a confused ball of mess that he almost doesn’t notice the Styrofoam cup of coffee perched on the kitchen counter. Still steaming.

 

A dimpled smile breaks out across Joe’s face when he reads the tiny note attached to it.

*****

**Earlier That Same Morning The Day After Thanksgiving (on the other side of town)**

“This,” Nolan doesn’t take his eyes off the screen and the glow from his laptop casts shadows on his face. “This is why you’re the best. Completely fucking mental, but the best.”

 

Tom chuckles and sits back, accidently reaching up to stroke a beard that doesn’t exist anymore.  He can’t help but miss the somewhat offensive accessory. Mainly since it did amazingly useful things like hide the traitorous shade of crimson that his cheeks loved to glow.  Some people still refuse to believe that Tom is a shy man. That shade saves him from having to further convince them every time.  

 

It isn’t at all like Tom is not accustomed to being complimented, but the amount received doesn’t make the occurrence any easier for him to accept.

 

It has been a long week and when Nolan urges him to take the rest of the day off, Tom is grateful to escape both his colleagues’ jealous and envious stares. To escape all the praise and further accusations of his own insanity. Tom takes his drive home smiling for reasons he never dared to mention in his article, the article that will be published for the entire city to read the next morning.

 

When Tom lays his head on his own pillow for the first time in a week of pretending that the streets were his home, Tom finds himself unable to think of anything other than the beautiful man that is Joseph.

 

And then a text message comes in from Dileep.

 

_-So when do I get to hear of the part you left out about him in the article._

Tom chuckles and puts his phone aside, knowing that it had been an inevitable question from his best friend. Tom lets himself drift off to sleep, thinking about the first day he laid eyes on Joseph.                                                         

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for Reading!!!
> 
> Next Chapter is entirely Toms POV. 
> 
> Also, kudos to you if you know which song by lonely Island Joseph was laughing about. lol


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